Psychology History

Imagine living in a world where people use their computers, drive their cars, and communicate with one another simply by thinking. In this stunning and inspiring work, Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis shares his revolutionary insights into how the brain creates thought and the human sense of self - and how this might be augmented by machines, so that the entire universe will be within our reach.

Alan Riding introduces a pageant of 20th-century artists who lived and worked under the Nazis and explores the decisions each made about whether to stay or flee, collaborate or resist. We see Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf singing before French and German audiences; Picasso painting and occasionally selling his work from his Left Bank apartment; and Marcel Carné and Henri-Georges Clouzot, among others, directing movies....

In the wake of a divorce, science writer and single mother Kayt Sukel made herself a guinea pig in the labs of some unusual love experts to find out. This Is Your Brain on Sex is her lively and hilarious examination of the big questions about love and sex, previously published in hardcover as Dirty Minds. Each chapter of this edgy romp through the romantic brain looks at a different aspect of love above the belt.

Great ideas often develop gradually after studying a problem at length--but not always. Sometimes an insight hits like a bolt from the blue. For Archimedes clarity struck while he was taking a bath. For Gustav Mahler it came as the blades of his oars touched the water. And for Albert Einstein, it emerged while he was talking to a friend.

In Smarter Than You Think, Thompson documents how every technological innovation - from the printing press to the telegraph - has provoked the very same anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we adapt, learning to use the new and retaining what’s good of the old.

For centuries, medicine has made reckless use of one of earth's most toxic substances: mercury - and the consequences, often invisible or ignored, continue to be tragic. Today, global emissions of mercury as well as other toxicants, make us all more vulnerable to its effects. From the worst cases of syphilis to Sigmund Freud's first cases of hysteria, from baffling new disorders in 19th century Britain to the modern scourge of autism, The Age of Autism traces the long overlooked history of mercury poisoning.

The human psyche is one of the most complex, unpredictable, enigmatic, and therefore riveting phenomena in existence, one that psychologists have been working on deciphering since the dawn of modern science. To better understand the multifaceted intricacies of human behavior, and to unlock the secrets of the conscious mind and the subconscious, ambitious professionals in the field have conducted numerous groundbreaking - and at times, problematic - psychological experiments.

Erno Rubik was a child when he first became obsessed with puzzles of all kinds. "Puzzles", he writes, "bring out important qualities in each of us: concentration, curiosity, a sense of play, the eagerness to discover a solution". To Rubik, puzzles aren't just games - they're creativity machines. He encourages us to embrace our inner curiosity and find the puzzles that surround us in our everyday lives. "If you are determined, you will solve them", he writes. Rubik's own puzzle, the Cube, has been solved by millions worldwide for more than 40 years....

Whitehead presented these three lectures at Princeton University in 1929. Although 85 years have passed, his central thesis and his analysis remain remarkably current. The scientific materialism that Whitehead opposed with such vigor continues to dominate in academic circles, and even now those who question that worldview are often accused of being anti-scientific. This is especially true in discussions of the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body (particularly the brain).

The best of this year's true crime writing from master true crime authors RJ Parker, Peter Vronsky, JJ Slate, Sylvia Perrini, and Michael Newton, who give us nine new shocking case accounts of serial killers.

Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology is the eighth title published in the Templeton Science and Religion Series, in which scientists from a wide range of fields distill their experience and knowledge into brief tours of their respective specialties. In this volume, well-known cognitive scientist Justin L. Barrett offers an accessible overview of this interdisciplinary field, reviews key findings in this area, and discusses the implications of these findings for religious thought and practice.

With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, our society, and the family. It underpins our finances and our sense of meaning in life. Given the overriding importance of work, we need to recognize a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work. Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations.

In Life Finds a Way, biologist Andreas Wagner reveals the deep symmetry between innovation in biological evolution and human cultural creativity. Rarely is either a linear climb to perfection - instead, "progress" is typically marked by a sequence of peaks, plateaus, and pitfalls. For instance, in Picasso's 40-some iterations of Guernica, we see the same combination of small steps, incessant reshuffling, and large, almost reckless, leaps that characterize the way evolution transformed a dinosaur's grasping claw into a condor's soaring wing.

A brilliant, invigorating account of the great writers on both sides of the Iron Curtain who played the dangerous games of espionage, dissidence, and subversion that changed the course of the Cold War.

Sex, The World History: Through Time, Religion, and Culture is a daring, deep historical-anthropological exploration. It is also a scathing condemnation of religion and its insistent control of sex.

Sex, violent childhood, fear, fits of rage, belief in destiny: They all played a part in creating the personality of Adolf Hitler. What secrets were in Hitler's life? Psychoanalysis has proven that a person's adult life is determined by his or her childhood. This is the method used to reverse-engineer Hitler in this professional psychological analysis. It looks at his adult life and determines what led him to be the person he became. It reveals many previously unknown characteristics.

In this book in praise of wait times, award-winning author Jason Farman passionately argues that the delay between call and answer has always been an important part of the message. Traveling backward from our current era of Twitter and texts, Farman describes how societies have worked to eliminate waiting in communication and how they have interpreted those times' meanings. And in a rebuttal to the demand for instant communication, Farman makes a powerful case for why good things can come to those who wait.

Eliot Ness presents the first complete picture of the real Eliot Ness. Both fearless and shockingly shy, he inspired courage and loyalty in men twice his age, forged law-enforcement innovations that are still with us today, and earned acclaim and scandal from both his professional and personal lives. Through it all, he believed unwaveringly in the integrity of law and the basic goodness of his fellow Americans.

Hatred is often considered the opposite of love, but in many ways it is much more complicated. It also may be considered one of the dominant emotions of our time, as individuals, groups, and even nations express or enact hatred to varying degrees. What is hatred? Where does it come from, and what does it reveal about the hater? And is hatred always a bad thing? Brogaard makes a deep dive into the moral psychology of one of our most complex and vivid emotions.

We spend a third of our lives in bed, but how much do we really understand about what happens when we go to sleep? What's the right amount? Why do we experience jet lag? Is snoring normal? Enter Dr. Meir Kryger, a world authority on the science of sleep, with a comprehensive guide to the science of slumber that combines detailed case studies and pragmatic advice.